LA UPCOMING STUFF - FEBRUARY 2010

a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.

tue. feb. 2

mia doi todd @ spaceland
gran torino 1 PM @ lacma


wed. feb. 3

the flapper 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
black sunday, two-minute warning @ aero theatre
husbands, gloria @ new beverly theatre


thu. feb. 4

night flight presents a tribute to new wave theater 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
the in-laws, silver streak @ aero theatre
husbands, gloria @ new beverly theatre
the most dangerous man in america @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges theater
jason simon @ spaceland


fri. feb. 5

vivian girls @ detroit bar
one day in the life of andrei arsenevich @ lacma
the sacrifice 8:40 PM @ lacma
thee cormans @ captain helms (oceanside)
nashville ramblers @ shindig @ the tower bar (SD)
dirt dress @ pehrspace
poor pretty eddie 8 PM, the loners @ silent movie theatre
the out of towners, plaza suite @ aero theatre
revanche, the virgin spring @ new beverly theatre


sat. feb. 6

nashville ramblers @ mind machine @ bordello
vivian girls, dunes @ the smell
hepcat, joey altruda @ el rey
thermals @ detroit bar
no one knows about persian cats @ ucla film archive
vincere (preview screening) @ lacma
running scared MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
daisies @ silent movie theatre
revanche 3:20 7:30 PM, the virgin spring 5:40 9:50 PM @ new beverly theatre


sun. feb. 7

pee-wee's big adventure, three stooges short films @ new beverly theatre
no age, vivian girls, darker my love, nodzzz, abe vigoda NOON @ no cancer benefit
circles of confusion: hollis frampton @ filmforum @ egyptian theatre


mon. feb. 8

pee-wee's big adventure 3:25 7:30 PM, three stooges short films 5:15 9:20 PM @ new beverly theatre


tue. feb. 9

mia doi todd @ spaceland
thermals @ detroit bar
casablanca @ arclight sherman oaks
ichi the killer 10 PM @ downtown independent
toonstruck - cartoons in love 8 PM @ jerry beck's animation tuesdays @ silent movie theatre
lifeforce, the return of the living dead @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly theatre
north face @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges theater


wed. feb. 10

the exiles, killer of sheep @ new beverly theatre
blast phemy! one 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
lemora: a child's tale of the supernatural, blood and roses @ egyptian theatre
inherit the wind, guess who's coming to dinner @ aero theatre


thu. feb. 11

the exiles, killer of sheep @ new beverly theatre
thermals @ troubadour
car cemetery 8 PM @ post-punk junk mix night @ silent movie theatre
muscle beach party, beach blanket bingo @ egyptian theatre
portrait of jennie, love letters @ aero theatre
mock up on mu 8 PM @ echo park film center
becky stark @ spaceland


fri. feb. 12

444-day face-off, countdown @ ucla film archive
okie dokie, charlie and the moonhearts @ the CKB (pasadena)
moon duo @ synchronicity
the exiles, killer of sheep @ new beverly theatre
harold & maude MIDNIGHT @ nuart
fleshpot on 42nd st. 8 PM, the body beneath @ silent movie theatre
dirty harry @ lacma
tightrope 9:25 PM @ lacma
beauty and the beast (1946), donkey skin @ aero theatre


sat. feb. 13

royce hall organ & silent film - charlie chaplin 2 PM @ ucla royce hall
psycho 2 PM, 8 PM @ alex theatre
moon duo @ showcave
no age, mike watt @ family
the loons @ shakin' street @ the tower bar (SD)
letter to anna: the story of journalist politkovskaya's death @ ucla film archive
the exiles 4:10 7:30, killer of sheep 5:45 9:05 @ new beverly theatre
the last american virgin MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
intimate lighting @ silent movie theatre
the outlaw josey wales 7 PM @ lacma
pale rider 9:25 PM @ lacma


sun. feb. 14

seven chances 6 PM @ silent movie theatre
freebie and the bean @ silent movie theatre
wild at heart 10:30 PM @ downtown independent
casablanca, double indemnity @ egyptian theatre
rebecca, notorious @ aero theatre
summertime 3:40 7:30 PM, all that heaven allows 5:40 9:30 PM @ new beverly theatre


mon. feb. 15

john cage: the revenge of the dead indians @ 7 dudley cinema
summertime, all that heaven allows @ new beverly theatre


tue. feb. 16

magic kids, dunes @ the echo
mia doi todd, becky stark @ spaceland
east of eden @ arclight sherman oaks
one too many mornings 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
buffalo '66, star 80 @ new beverly theatre


wed. feb. 17

getting gertie's garter 8 PM, up in mabel's room @ silent movie theatre
war of the worlds (1953), china gate @ aero theatre
buffalo '66, star 80 @ new beverly theatre


thu. feb. 18

45365 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
rituals in transfigured time FREE 7 PM @ hammer museum
a face in the crowd, wild river @ egyptian theatre
left bank film night 8 PM @ echo park film center
after hours, desperately seeking susan @ aero theatre


fri. feb. 19

teenage divorcee 8 PM, teenage hitchhikers @ silent movie theatre
jon brion @ largo
ron silva & the monarchs @ the tower bar (SD)
man on a tightrope, on the waterfront @ egyptian theatre
ferris bueller's day off, election @ new beverly theatre


sat. feb. 20

about elly @ ucla film archive
marketa lazarova 7 PM @ silent movie theatre
ron silva & the monarchs @ bordello
unforgiven 7 PM @ lacma
baby doll, a streetcar named desire @ egyptian theatre
the hills have eyes (1977), last house on the left (1972) @ aero theatre
ferris bueller's day off 3:20 7:30 PM, election 5:25 9:30 PM @ new beverly theatre


sun. feb. 21

mirah @ bootleg theater
it 2 PM @ egyptian theatre
the people under the stairs, the serpent and the rainbow @ aero theatre
shampoo 6:30 PM, boogie nights 8:45 PM @ new beverly theatre
facs of life 7 PM @ telic arts exchange


mon. feb. 22

shampoo, boogie nights @ new beverly theatre


tue. feb. 23

penitentiary iii, disco godfather @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly theatre
cool hand luke @ arclight sherman oaks


wed. feb. 24

the three burials of melquiades estrada @ ucla film archive
the patsy 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
commando, class of 1984 @ aero theatre
breaking away, bottle rocket @ new beverly theatre


thu. feb. 25

liquid sky 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
gremlins, gremlins 2 @ egyptian theatre
playtime (70mm) @ aero theatre
breaking away, bottle rocket @ new beverly theatre


fri. feb. 26

antichrist MIDNIGHT @ nuart
pharoah sanders quartet @ nate holden performing arts center
strange boys @ the echo
timonium @ pehrspace
bird @ lacma
jason and the argonauts, jack the giant killer @ egyptian theatre
mon oncle, the magnificent tati, jacques tati short films @ aero theatre


sat. feb. 27

for the love of movies: the story of american film criticism @ ucla film archive
patton oswalt @ largo
mike watt & the missingmen @ redwood bar
dirt dress @ spaceland
bipolar bear @ the smell
videodrome MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
valerie and her week of wonders @ silent movie theatre
mr. hulot's holiday, the big day @ aero theatre


sun. feb. 28

cartune xprez: 2010 future television 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
traffic, parade @ aero theatre
neil hamburger @ spaceland
fletch 3:15 7:30 PM, into the night 5:15 9:30 PM @ new beverly theatre


mon. mar. 1

herostratus 8:30 PM @ redcat
killer klowns from outer space 10 PM @ downtown independent 
fletch, into the night @ new beverly theatre


tue. mar. 2

scope-a-toons 8 PM @ jerry beck's animation tuesdays @ silent movie theatre
fletch, into the night @ new beverly theatre


wed. mar. 3

the mystic 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


thu. mar. 4

a night with TVTV 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


fri. mar. 5

the clientele @ spaceland
mike watt & the missingmen @ bootleg theatre
the evil dead (uncut) MIDNIGHT @ nuart
damnation alley 8 PM, the road warrior @ silent movie theatre


sat. mar. 6

the clientele @ spaceland
the man from london 7 PM @ silent movie theatre
the running man 10:15 PM @ TV of tomorrow @ silent movie theatre


wed. mar. 10

blast phemy! two 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


thu. mar. 11

the dutchess and the duke @ the echo
new mastersounds @ el rey


fri. mar. 12

the big lebowski MIDNIGHT @ nuart
sleepy sun @ the echo
quasi @ spaceland
the bed sitting room 8 PM, a boy and his dog @ silent movie theatre


sat. mar. 13

sansho the bailiff 7:15 PM @ silent movie theatre
idiocracy 10 PM @ silent movie theatre
alice 11 PM @ downtown independent


wed. mar. 17

women love diamonds 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


fri. mar. 19

the end of august at the hotel ozone 8 PM, glen and randa @ silent movie theatre
labyrinth MIDNIGHT @ nuart theatre


sat. mar. 20

the earrings of madame de... @ silent movie theatre
futureskate: prayer of the rollerboys 10 PM, solarbabies @ silent movie theatre


sun. mar. 21

small change @ silent movie theatre


tue. mar. 23

harmony & me 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


wed. mar. 24

a woman of affairs 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


fri. mar. 26

the last man on earth 8 PM, night of the comet, the omega man @ silent movie theatre
jon brion @ largo


sat. mar. 27

the round-up @ silent movie theatre
peter kolovos @ synchronicity


sun. mar. 28

like a phoenix from the ashes 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


tue. mar. 30

ross lipman: urban ruins found moments 8:30 PM @ redcat


fri. apr. 2

the princess bride MIDNIGHT @ nuart theatre


sat. apr. 3

the ghastly ones @ haunted house a-go-go @ bordello


mon. apr. 5

light echoes dark: the films of julie murray 8:30 PM @ redcat


fri. apr. 9

the warriors MIDNIGHT @ nuart theatre


sat. apr. 10

royce hall organ & silent film - bernard hermann and alfred hitchcock 8 PM @ ucla royce hall
a day at the races 2:00 8:00 PM @ alex theatre


tue. apr. 20

california e.a.r. unit presents lou reed's metal machine music 8:30 PM @ redcat


fri. apr. 23

titans of the graphic novel: harvey pekar and alison bechdel 8 PM @ ucla royce hall




WHAT IT IS:


ABOUT ELLY
(2009, Iran) Directed by Asghar Farhadi
Asghar Farhadi (Beautiful City, shown in our 2005 edition) returns with this captivating drama, Iran’s entry to the 2010 Academy Awards.  When schoolteacher Elly is whisked away by friends on a pleasure trip to the Caspian Sea, their true agenda is revealed: to marry her off to the recently divorced Ahmad. The fib is the first of many in what soon becomes a mystery when Elly suddenly disappears. 
Screenplay: Asghar Farhadi. Cinematographer: Hossein Jafarian. Editor: Hayedeh Safarian. Cast: Taraneh Alidousti, Golshifteh Farahani, Mani Haghighi, Shahab Hosseini, Merila Zarei. Presented in Farsi dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, Color, 119 min.


AFTER HOURS, 1985, Warner Bros., 97 min. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Manhattan becomes a surreal dreamscape of bizarre terror in Martin Scorsese's film about an ordinary guy who agrees to a late-night date with an attractive but alarmingly disturbed woman (Rosanna Arquette). Dead bodies, strange sculptresses and an incensed ice cream truck mob are all part of the protagonist's weird anti-journey into the dark and neglected hours of the morning.


ALICE
dir. Jan Svankmejar
1988, 35mm, color, 86 min.
When Alice follows the White Rabbit into Wonderland, so begins this dream expedition into the astonishing landscape of childhood, through many dangerous adventures, and ultimately to Alice's trial before the King and Queen of Hearts.
Czech animator Jan Svankmajer has created a masterpiece of cinema, a strikingly original interpretation of Lewis Carroll's classic tale. Svankmajer's Alice remains true to the absurdity of Carroll's original, but bears the stamp of his own distinctive style and obsessions. Combining techniques of animation and live action, he gives a new and fascinating dimension to the classic tale of childhood fantasies.


ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS
One of the best films from one of American cinema's finest directors. A scathing attack on the American Dream, in which a widow (Jane Wyman) faces the wrath of her friends and family when she becomes romantically involved with a younger man (Rock Hudson). Succumbing to the pressures of society, she stops seeing the man and settles back into her lonely life, trying to find the courage to rebel against her conformist surroundings and find love with him again. "A stylized, beautifully photographed commentary on the emotional numbness of suburban life" (The Motion Picture Guide). Later remade by Fassbinder as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.  Douglas Sirk---USA---1955---89 mins. 


BABY DOLL, 1956, Warner Bros., 114 min. Dir. Elia Kazan. Based on a Tennessee Williams play and the recipient of four Oscar nominations, Elia Kazan’s controversial film stars Carroll Baker in a ground-breaking performance as a thumb-sucking child bride in the Deep South. Karl Malden is her middle-aged husband, Archie Lee Meighan, a cotton gin owner who eagerly awaits his beloved’s 20th birthday, when their marriage will finally be consummated. But rival cotton businessman Silva Vaccaro (Eli Wallach, in his film debut) suspects Archie of arson and takes an erotic form of Sicilian vengeance in this gothic tale of pride and perversity. "A droll and engrossing carnal comedy. Wonderfully entertaining. Kazan does some of his finest work here - his choices seem miraculously right." – Pauline Kael


BEACH BLANKET BINGO, 1965, MGM Repertory, 98 min. Dir. William Asher. The fifth and best of the Frankie-Annette beach movies reunites them with Don Rickles, Donna Loren, Jody McCrea and director William Asher, and brings in comic legend Buster Keaton for a cameo. This time McCrea falls for a mermaid, Frankie learns to skydive and attracts the attention of a stuntgirl, and Annette sings in her two-piece bathing suit. A great supporting cast (Paul Lynde, Linda Evans) and a score by Les Baxter add to the fun. Live musical performance and discussion in between films with actress Donna Loren.


The Bed Sitting Room
It's a shame midnight movies didn't really catch on until the early '70s, as Richard Lester's absurdly ahead-of-its-time, trippy post-nuke comedy The Bed Sitting Room seems perfectly pitched for late-night audiences, a la The Holy Mountain. A host of your favorite old-school British comedians (including Peter Cook, Marty Feldman and Spike Milligan) feature in the tale of twenty survivors milling about a desolate, debris-strewn apocalyptic wasteland, all performing twisted variations on their normal daily rituals. The BBC still exists, thanks to a newscaster who stands in front of a blown-out TV set offering background exposition, and many of the survivors are either mutating into furniture or animals, or being told they're dead even when they clearly aren't. As the darkly comic sketches pile on top of each other in front of increasingly surreal vistas (shot gorgeously by Lester's longtime cameraman David Watkin), the film's curtain call for humanity echoes the close of the '60s, an era whose shifting winds of change were as volatile as Pu-239.
Dir. Richard Lester, 1969, 35mm, 90 min.


THE BIG DAY (JOUR DE FETE), 1949, Janus Films, 79 min. Jacques Tati’s feature debut as director is a priceless showcase for his comedic talents as he plays a mailman attempting to streamline delivery in his small town. He soon finds his attempts at modernization and a coinciding Bastille Day celebration don’t mix. In French with English subtitles.


Bird
1988/color/161 min. | Scr: Joel Oliansky; dir: Clint Eastwood; w/ Forest Whitaker, Diane Venora, Samuel E. Wright, Keith David
Drugs, alcohol, race, and racism were lifelong companions to alto-sax player Charlie Parker, defining the ups and downs of this gifted musician, but Eastwood's ambitious film goes beyond tragedy to celebrate an artist who was hailed as a jazz original and whose improvisations changed the face of American jazz. Eschewing the chronology of a typical bio-pic, the film uses fragments from Parker's life to depict the professional, legal and emotional conflicts-in particular, the volatile relationship with his white common-law wife-that dogged him until his death at thirty-four. A labor of love for aficionado Eastwood, who accessed restored master tracks of Parker's solos, Bird stirs with great musical performances while brilliantly evoking the jazz milieu of post-war New York. "In Bird, Eastwood shows talents that were never even hinted at in his earlier pictures. He has succeeded so thoroughly in communicating his love of his subject, and there's such vitality in the performances, that we walk out elated, juiced on the actors and the music. The young Forest Whitaker's brilliance is the force that holds the scattered pieces of Bird together. Only rarely in movies do characters achieve this sort of palpability, and then only when presented to us by a remarkable performer. And this is a remarkable performer giving a gentle, exuberant, charismatic performance… The image of Bird standing dead still on the bandstand, with only his fingers moving over the buttons of his horn, is hauntingly definitive, yet somehow shadowy and enigmatic, like a figure drawn in smoke."—Hal Hinson, Washington Post. 


BLACK SUNDAY, 1977, Paramount, 143 min. Director John Frankenheimer (THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, THE TRAIN), collaborating with screenwriter Ernest Lehman, adapts the novel by Thomas Harris (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) into a taut suspense thriller. Israeli agent Robert Shaw is on the trail of Marthe Keller, a Black September terrorist operative intent on manipulating deranged Vietnam vet Bruce Dern into piloting the Goodyear blimp in a plot to kill thousands during the Miami Super Bowl. Fritz Weaver (DEMON SEED) is Shaw’s American FBI liaison. 


Blast Phemy! 1:
A Midweek Music/Media Mashup
Blast Phemy! 1 is a kaleidoscope of media/music collaborative potentials, from mid-century experimentations to spontaneous singularities. The program features: Amy Knoles, stretching the limits of expression with solo electronic percussion/interactive video virtuosity; J.Walt’s Spontaneous Fantasia, a solo digital animation performance blasting visuals and music into uncharted territories; F-Stop Serenade’s tapestry of hand-processed film and music featuring filmmaker/organist Mark “Cosmo” Segurson with Heather Lockie, Michael Uhler, James King, Noah Smith, Billy Louviere, and Pilar Diaz; and finally, works by experimental master James Whitney (1921-1981). Over the course of his career, James became increasingly involved in contemplative, spiritual interests -- Jungian psychology, alchemy, yoga, Tao, Krishnamurti and consciousness expansion -- which all became the subject matter of the films on which he labored for over 30 years. Tonight, we'll be screening new restored transfers of Yantra (1957) and Lapis (1966), which were supervised by the Whitney Estate and the Academy Film Archive, and feature scores by Gregg Johnson, a live volcano in virtuosic, percussive eruption. 


Blast Phemy! 2:
Text Of Light (feat. Lee Ranaldo) & Parallel
Join Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo, collaborating live with saxophonist Ulrich Krieger and guitarist Alan Licht, as he goes to the blasphemous extreme with live scores to the films of Stan Brakhage and other mid-century American cinema avant-gardists. According to Licht, Text of Light "does not perform soundtracks to the films of Stan Brakhage. Rather, it uses the films as a further element for improvisation, almost as [another] performer. While Brakhage intended for these films to be screened silently as films...[here] they are juxtaposed with the music, in a kind of real-time performance, mixed-media collage." But the evening doesn't stop there! The night also includes a screening of Parallel, an animation tour-de-force by mediamaker Huckleberry Lain, featuring music by Argentinean-born, L.A.-based electronic duo Languis. 


BLOOD AND ROSES, 1960, Paramount, 74 min. Roger Vadim (BARBARELLA) directed this sumptuous and contemporary adaptation of LeFanu's vampire classic novella, "Carmilla." Carmilla (Annette Vadim) suffers pangs of jealousy when her beloved cousin Leopoldo (Mel Ferrer) becomes engaged to the ravishing Georgia (Elsa Martinelli). Carmilla begins to believe she is possessed by her ancient, undead ancestor, the vampire Millarca, and begins a blood thirsty reign of terror on the grounds of Leopoldo's estate. A seldom-screened classic. Discussion between films with director Richard Blackburn.


The Body Beneath
Most artists have a muse, something that gets their creative juices flowing or gives them inspiration during a mental block. Andy Milligan's muse, one which might be surprising to the uninitiated, was Victorian England, which he usually recreated on his native Long Island. For The Body Beneath, however, Milligan was granted the opportunity to shoot in the land he’d so long been crafting across the Atlantic. Body is well within Milligan’s usual aesthetic -- a combination of gaudy and lurid -- but is also the director's highest budgeted work, and in it he pulls out all the stops with a bloody vampire tale of a fanged Catholic priest that's extremely polished by his usual standards. Nevertheless, his trademark handheld cinematography and bizarre dialogue survive in full force, making the film another deliciously bizarre odyssey into the mind of one of underground cinema’s most intriguing characters.
Dir. Sutton Roley, 1972, 35mm, 79 min. 


A Boy And His Dog
We all knew that the bomb would bring barren landscapes, pillaging hoards and a nightmarish restructuring of society -- but who foresaw telepathic dogs and underground sex carnivals? Harlan Ellison did in A Boy And His Dog, adapted for the screen by character actor L.Q. Jones. Billed as "A Rather Kinky Tale of Survival", the film follows teenage wasteland roamer Vic (Don Johnson), and the search for food and sex led by his mind-melded canine companion in a world in which man has become beast, and beast has become the voice of civility. The film's dark comedic visions are once removed from most others, as its action takes place after World War IV(!), indicating a wry resignation to the inevitability of a WWIII in one of the darkest entries in a genre that starts with the end of the world.
Dir. L.Q. Jones, 1975, 35mm, 91 min.  


Car Cemetery
Post-Punk Junk Mix Night
(feat. Car Cemetery)
Cinefamily presents a cornucopia of deep cuts and other post-punk junk from around the globe. Want a taste? How about Reading Festival '78, a killer short concert doc profiling the punk bands (Sham 69, The Jam, Penetration, a pre-Midge Ure Ultravox) that controversially found themselves on the same festival bill as Foreigner and Status Quo; classic performances from the late '70s/early '80s NYC club circuit that included venues like Danceteria and Hurrah's; and, as the capper for the evening, the Liquid Sky-meets-Salo-meets-Jesus Christ Superstar French post-apocalypse 1983 TV movie Car Cemetery! Directed by Euro master surrealist Fernando Arrabal (Viva La Muerte), the film entirely takes place in a Tim Burton-esque auto junkyard that's the nexus of life after The Bomb goes off; here, mohawked punks party with neon-tinted fashionistas and a Jesus figure in the guise of a synth-pop spiritualist (singer-songwriter Alain Bashung, who also composed the film's rockin' electronic score.) Entirely unseen in the U.S., Car Cemetery will confound, corrode and captivate!
Car Cemetery  Dir. Fernando Arrabal, 1983, digital presentation, 90 min.


Cartune Xprez:
2010 Future Television
The travelling roadshow of animated videos and multimedia performances known as Cartune Xprez comes to the Cinefamily for an orgy of hypercolored retina-roasting antics. This program of experimental cartoons and live video theater is shaped around a maximum diversity of animated forms, and, using popular media as touchstones for their perspectives, each artist guides us through an inverted fantasy of isolation in this weird digital world, making your synapses sizzle with their stratospheric levels of conceptual awesomeness. The night's works provide a rare opportunity to see videos by emerging artists, as well as those of internationally-known creators whose collective resume includes the Whitney Biennial, MOMA, and Sundance. Topping off the evening's screenings is a live performance by Hooliganship, the "cell phone grunge group" (weloveyouso.com) that blends animation and electo-rock sounds into an elaborate pulsating poke to the cerebellum -- and did we mention costume changes?!


CHINA GATE, 1957, Paramount, 97 min. Determined to get her bastard son to America, gorgeous Eurasian Lucky Legs (Angie Dickinson) agrees to help hard-bitten mercenary Gene Barry and his partners (including Nat ‘King’ Cole) on a jungle trek to destroy a Viet Cong munitions dump on the border between China and French Vietnam. The catch is that racist Barry is the father of the boy, and Dickinson’s part in the scheme is to romance the arms depot’s Viet Cong commander (Lee Van Cleef). A super-hard-boiled and deeply felt work by master filmmaker Sam Fuller. 


CLASS OF 1984, 1982, 98 min. Director Mark Lester updates THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE to tell the story of an amiable high school teacher (Perry King) driven to violent action when a group of punks (led by deliciously psychotic Timothy Van Patten) make him a target of harassment. Roddy McDowall and Michael J. Fox co-star in this riveting revenge film. Discussion in between films with director Mark L. Lester.


Daisies
Daisies is a bubbling and buoyant spring of irrepressible female creativity; it is an overflowing audio-visual bouquet of color, music, and texture; it is a freewheeling and effervescent farce, a formal free-for-all, a paradoxical mixture of bourgeois indulgence and cultural critique, and it's your next favorite movie. Two young Czech girls (both named Marie) decide that the world is so corrupt that they might as well join in, and they do so with wild abandon -- prancing, food-fighting, pranking old men, carousing in nightclubs, and creating anarchy everywhere they go. Director Vera Chytilova's love of cinema's potential is both playful and palpable, as exuberant as the spirit of the two "daisies" whose misadventures have surprising weight and meaning. Banned upon its release by the Czech government, Daisies has become a major cult favorite thanks to its dazzling setpieces, the charismatic and fashionable art-girl heroines, and an infectious sense of fun that's as potent today as it was when it first premiered behind the Iron Curtain.
Dir. Vera Chytilová, 1966, 35mm, 74 min.


Damnation Alley
Amongst pulsating irradiated skies, giant scorpions, cockroach assassins and other nonsense left behind in the aftermath of a nuclear winter, Damnation Alley is a wacky, gung-ho prototypical "A-Team" adventure of hardy American military survivors leaving the confines of their NORAD-like headquarters to blaze across the countryside, hunting for other refugees and a path to the last remaining city not yet vaporized. You’ve got the crusty stogie-chomping team leader (George Peppard), the hotheaded young buck (Jan-Michael Vincent), the nervous wisecracker (Paul Winfield), the sultry foreign chick (Dominique Sanda), and the adolescent who’ll save the day (Jackie Earle Haley) -- all touring around in the RV From Hades: a gonzo, armored "Landmaster" that could easily make shredded cheese out of both The Car and Killdozer. Alongside the film's snap-crackle-and-pop exterior is also a surprising nihilistic undercurrent, with its creepy, somber missile attack prologue, and the fact that Peppard's Air Force major (the supposed hero of its post-apocalypse) also happens to be the dude who pushed the nuclear button in the first place!
Dir. Jack Smight, 1977, 35mm, 95 min.


DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, 1985, MGM Repertory, 104 min. Dir. Susan Seidelman. Housewife Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) is bored. So bored that she follows the Personals romance between New Yorker Susan (an 80's-glam Madonna) and her boyfriend. When Roberta decides to find Susan in the flesh, the hapless suburbanite gets knocked out and wakes up with amnesia... and a newfound feeling that she is actually Susan. Discussion in between films with actress Rosanna Arquette.


DISCO GODFATHER
(from IMDB)
A retired cop becomes a DJ/celebrity at the Blueberry Hill disco-- he's the "Disco Godfather!" All is well until his nephew flips out on a strange new drug that's sweeping the streets, called "angel dust," or PCP. Disco Godfather vows "to personally come down on the suckers that's producing this shit!" He takes to the streets, slaps drug dealers and even exposes a crooked cop that is covering for the dealers. In between, he still finds time to manage the Blueberry Hill and perform. "Put a little slide in yo' glide," he pleads to the patrons, "Put some weight on it!"  Dir. J. Robert Wagoner, 1979, 93 mins.


The Earrings of Madame De...
One of Max Ophuls’ wittiest depictions of boudoir intrigue, Madame De... proves that exquisite technique and elaborately orchestrated camera movements can be used as effectively for comedy as for tragedy. In this densely-plotted satire of marital fidelity, we follow the eponymous earrings as they are sold, gambled, gifted and grifted between an arrogant general (Charles Boyer), his impetuous wife (Danielle Darrieux), and her Italian aristocrat lover (Bicycle Thieves director Vittorio de Sica). As in Lola Montes and La Ronde, Ophuls uses ornate camera movements to depict desire as the ultimate currency of high society. Just as this desire defies the rigid social order, so too does Ophuls’ camera defy, as in the legendary ballroom sequence, the boundaries of space and time. The masterful staging of traveling shots is Ophuls’ claim to fame, and he surely doesn’t disappoint here, with dazzling extended displays of set design, choreography and performance from the very first shot to the last.
Dir. Max Ophuls, 1953, 35mm, 105 min. 


EAST OF EDEN
In the Salinas Valley, in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother Aron for the love of their father Adam. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, to how to get ahead in business and in life, to how to relate to estranged mother. 115 mins, Dir. Elia Kazan


The End Of August At The Hotel Ozone
"Like Andrei Tarkovsky directing Mad Max with an all-female cast." - American Cinematheque
Hotel Ozone does not come from the realm of the fantastical or surreal. Unrelentingly bleak in its depiction of a human de-evolution, it's the stark Czech tale of a wise old woman and her band of feral female survivors foraging for food and mate-able males in a rural post-nuke landscape. Mangling wildlife for primal kicks and exhibiting no civilized tendencies, the womens' journey has them stumble upon one final survivor, a gentle old man keeping watch over a tiny gallery of pre-Holocaust artifacts at an abandoned inn. Hotel Ozone's tragic, Twilight Zone tone is just the right buffer between the audience and the terrifying bummer of its scenario -- right down to its final chilling frames. NOTE: Be advised -- this film contains scenes depicting realistic animal cruelty.
Dir. Jan Schmidt, 1967, 35, 77 min.


THE EXILES
This 1961 American neorealist film records one long evening in the solemn lives of a group of Native Americans living in Los Angeles' Bunker Hill neighborhood. While in film school at USC, director Kent Mackenzie made a short film on this diverse, low-rent, long-gone part of L.A. This concrete character and inhabitants--exiles from Arizona--make up the cast of The Exiles. "...a near-heavenly vision of a near-hell that Mr. Mackenzie situated at the juncture of nonfiction and fiction. He tapped into the despair of this obscured world while also making room for the poetry and derelict beauty of its dilapidated buildings, neon signs, peeling walls and downcast faces" (The New York Times).  Kent Mackenzie---USA---1961---72 mins. 


A FACE IN THE CROWD, 1957, Warner Bros., 125 min. Dir. Elia Kazan. Andy Griffith is mesmerizing as an Arkansas vagrant-turned-television-sensation in Kazan’s provocative examination of fame, fraud, and the media’s transition from radio to television. "Brilliantly cinematic melodrama…paints a luridly entertaining picture of modern show business." – Leslie Halliwell


FACS OF LIFE
On Sunday, February 21, we are lucky to have Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson visiting us from Paris to screen their 2009 film, Facs of Life. The screening will begin at 7pm, but we invite you to come earlier for a conversation with Silvia and Graeme.
Facs of Life departs from Gilles Deleuze's Vicennes seminar of 1975-1976 and follows several individuals who participated there as students.  In the words of the filmmakers, it "is a film of conceptual/poetic dispositifs that charts trajectories of those affected by Gilles Deleuze's laboratory of machinic thought at the Centre Experimental Universitaire de Paris 8 - Vincennes (1969-1980). The film generates its lignes derre and its cinematographic territories from a series of encounters: with videos of Deleuze's courses at Vincennes made by a group of militant cineastes; with several of those who attended the seminar and who appear in these images; with the woods of Vincennes where the university buildings (pulled down in 1980) once stood; with students of the new Paris 8 university at St Denis; and inevitably with the phantoms of revolution that continue to haunt our desires."


The Flapper
Whenever we hear "flapper girl", we all think of the head-turningly beautiful, wise-cracking Jazz Age lass with the bobbed hair who's the life of the party -- but before the popularization of that image, there was The Flapper, the film that started it all, featuring of the most popular stars of the 1920s (but an elusive name to us now,) Olive Thomas. Written by influential female screenwriter Frances Marion, the story follows a teenage girl cursed with being full of life in a Footloose-style morally restrictive Florida town. She just wants to have some innocent fun and be herself, but her wily ways, along with her loose-laced shoes (her "flapper" boots) give her away to anyone who thinks she's a prim and proper maid. Add to this scenes of Olive in high society (decked out in jewelry and fancy clothes) as she aids some jewel thieves, and you've got a proto-It Girl that'll steal your heart and leave you charmed.
Dir. Alan Crosland, 1920, 35mm, 88 min. (Restored 35mm print courtesy of The George Eastman House)


FOR THE LOVE OF MOVIES: THE STORY OF AMERICAN FILM CRITICISM
(2009) Directed by Gerald Peary
In this timely documentary, film critic Gerald Peary recounts the rich and storied history of film criticism in America, from Manny Farber's dazzling prose to the rise of Harry Knowles, as he makes the case for why film criticism still matters. Peary's interview subjects include Knowles, Elvis Mitchell, Lisa Schwarzbaum, Andrew Sarris, B. Ruby Rich, John Powers and Richard Corliss with clips featuring Farber, Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert.
Producer: Amy Geller. Screenwriter: Gerald Peary. Cinematographer: Craig Chivers, Nick Kurzon, Amy Geller, Edward Slattery. Editor: Sabrina Zanella-Foresi, Aleksandar Lekic. HDcam, 80 min.
IN PERSON:Gerald Peary, John Powers, Richard Schickel, Ella Taylor, Anne Thompson.


45365
"In an age where most docs are grafted over by pop narratives for greater suspense, drama or momentum, 45365 works specifically because of its wonderfully curated aimlessness." - GreenCine Daily
From the patrol car to the courtroom, the playground to the nursing home, the parade to the prayer service, 45365 explores the congruities of daily life in a small American town -- Sidney, Ohio, to be exact. The stories of a father and son, a young relationship, cops and criminals, officials and their electorate coalesce into a mosaic of faces, places, and events. First-time filmmakers Turner and Bill Ross not only do a fantastic job collecting engaging documentary subjects unfettered by the presence of their cameras, but also crafting a mood in which they trust you'll be persistent, that you'll let their quiet rhythm build -- that your enjoyment of the unforced cinematic whisper is not only OK, but desired in its own right.
Dirs. Bill Ross IV & Turner Ross, 2009, 90 min.


444-DAY FACE-OFF
(2008) Directed by Mohammad Shirvani
Mohammad Shirvani (7 Blind Women Filmmakers) recounts the spectacular taking of the United States Embassy after the ouster of the Shah and the 444-day "hostage crisis" that followed. With tremendous access and skill, Shirvani cagily interviews actual participants, including US embassy officials and Iranian students, to reconstruct key episodes and deconstruct contentious issues.
Producer: Mohammad Shirvani. Cinematographer: Hooman Behmanesh, Kambiz Karimi, Mahmoud Reza Sani, Mohammad Shirvani. Editor: Mohammad Shirvani. DVcam, 70 min. 


FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, 1974, Warner Bros., 113 min. This cop buddy action film directed by Richard Rush (THE STUNT MAN) was mercilessly savaged by critics who found it disturbingly offensive - but it packed them in at the box office. Contrary to most then-current reviews, Rush's approach is so insanely over-the-top, so remorselessly profane and politically incorrect, it transcends into an anarchic, anything-goes, live-action cartoon universe. Sensitive, though hot-tempered, Latino cop Alan Arkin is repeatedly provoked by his abusive, foulmouthed partner James Caan as they wreck most of San Francisco in a non-stop demolition derby trying to capture mobster Jack Kruschen. Valerie Harper is a standout as Arkin's put-upon wife. "rife with racism, homophobia and sexism. That it entertains rather than appalls is down to James Caan and Alan Arkin's brilliant badinage which, together with some excellent action sequences, ensure director Richard Rush's movie gets away with its detours into bad taste." - Channel 4 Film (UK) Presented by Michael Cera.


GETTING GERTIE'S GARTER
Tonight's double feature takes a look at one of the Silent era's most prolific and adorable flappers: cutie-pie Marie Prevost, who starred in over 120 silents and talkies after being discovered by Mack Sennett (who dubbed her his "exotic French girl"), and whose dark curls, full lips and beaming eyes set a nation of suitors' hearts aflutter. We start the night with the frothy comedy Getting Gertie's Garter, where attorney Ken Walrick must reclaim a sexually suggestive gift (the garter given to Gertie, natch) before his other girl (ahem, his wife) finds out.  Dir. E. Mason Hopper, 1927, 35mm, 70 min.


Glen And Randa
"The city’s far, far away, over the mountains," the magician told him. "I was 15 when it was totaled. They was droppin’ dead in the streets for years." "Take me to the city," Glen said. But the magician had other business, so just like Prince Valiant on his quest for the Holy Grail, Glen set out for the city. The record of the journey is Glen and Randa, a primitive, desperate odyssey by the last bewildered survivors of an atomic holocaust. Neither moralizing sci-fi nor melodrama, despite its fanciful premise, the film is rather like a cinéma verité doomsday doc — a parable in newsreel form. Using a rigorously unadorned style, director Jim McBride and co-writer Rudy Wurlitzer convey a sense of primitive desolation, transforming contemporary landscapes into primeval heaths. Although the film is unsparing in its vision, its dour brutality is frequently alleviated by a cool eye for satire. Jim McBride will appear in person for a Q&A after the show!
Dir. Jim McBride, 1971, 35mm, 93 min.


GLORIA
John Cassavetes creates a powerful, tension-filled story about an ex-gun moll and showgirl on the run from the mob, protecting the son of neighbors who have already been killed by the criminals. With Gena Rowlands in an Oscar-nominated performance.  John Cassavetes---USA---1980---121 mins. 


Harmony & Me
"The most creative works of art often come from heartache. In a way, that’s all we can hope for and from Harmony, a sullen young lyricist, as he pines for a woman who broke his heart with seemingly little remorse. Harmony finds solace in song, yet fails to find compassion from those around him: pathetic friends who drive minivans convince him that love is a vaguely pedophilic letdown, and self-serving coworkers show him that life is generally sadistic. Meanwhile, chewy frozen chocolate serves as a reminder that at times everything can be too grievous to handle. Austin-based filmmaker Bob Byington’s homegrown style transcends the piece's budgetary limitations, and his scripted esprit results in colorful, chaotic characters brought to life by Justin Rice, Kevin Corrigan, Pat Healy, and Kristen Tucker. These characters don’t merely mimic reality; they heighten the hilarity of a traumatic post-breakup, which in truth is probably just about as ridiculous in life as it is onscreen." (CineVegas) Director Bob Byington will appear live for a post-screening Q&A!


Herostratus
“The world of Herostratus is cold, stark metallic, expressed with an imagery as succinct and evocative as anything in Antonioni at his best.”
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
UK, 1967, 142 min., hdcam
Though Australian-born Don Levy taught and inspired generations of filmmakers and artists at CalArts in the 1970s and ’80s, his own underground masterpiece Herostratus remained largely out of public view. Now, more than 40 years after the psychedelic shock Levy delivered to a British film industry steeped in kitchensink realism, Herostratus is screening once more, thanks to a new restoration by the British Film Institute. In this coruscating work, Michael Gothard astonishes as the eponymous young poet who hires a pr firm to turn his planned suicide into a media spectacle. Bursting with psychological and aesthetic urgency, Herostratus proved as prescient about the failure of the ’60s counterculture as it was inspirational for the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Nicolas Roeg. “[S]een by virtually every filmmaker then working in the British film industry…. Herostratus must now certainly rank among the most influential of unknown films,” according to Amnon Buchbinder.


HUSBANDS
One of John Cassavetes' greatest films, this is an unflinching look at middle-aged male excess, in all its humor and sadness. Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and Cassavetes play three men who attend the funeral of a mutual friend. Confronted by their own mortality, they go on a free-for-all, drunken journey that extends over several days and includes a spontaneous side trip to London. Alternately hilarious and painful, Husbands is a deeply personal, emotionally complex masterpiece and a landmark of American independent cinema.
John Cassavetes---USA---1970---142 mins. 


Intimate Lighting
(w/ director Ivan Passer in person!)
Watching Intimate Lighting is like having drinks with an old, rarely seen friend on a warm summer night -- after some gentle laughs (too mild to ache one's belly) and a wistful reminisce or two, it's off to bed in a warm and drunken shroud of soft, sweet melancholy. After co-writing Loves of a Blonde and The Fireman's Ball for Milos Forman, Ivan Passer directed this quotidian comedy centered around a brief semi-professional visit between two such friends; one is a professional musician, the other an amateur, and together they will play in a local concert. The "city mouse/country mouse" storytelling is deceptive artless and endlessly pleasing. Amusing incidents, observed absurdities, and other soft-sold bits and pieces of comic business all swirl around in constant orchestration. Music seems to imbue everything; even men peeing against a wall, or the sounds of wives snoring is conducted in graceful and humorous rhythms. With its small cast, a bucolic setting, and the slightest of stories -- more of an anecdote, really -- Passer has created not so much a pastoral symphony, but a chamber piece. One you can enjoy time and time again, as the sun sets on another day.
Dir. Ivan Passer, 1965, 35mm, 71 min. 


IT, 1927, Kino, 72 min. Dir. Clarence G. Badger. The film that launched a thousand bobbed hairdos, IT stars the remarkably sassy Clara Bow as Betty Lou, a  department store worker who has "It" (a.k.a. sex appeal). What does an It Girl do when the man of her dreams doesn't know she exists? She dates his best friend! This attention-getting technique works swimmingly, but complications arise when Betty Lou is mistakenly written up in the daily newspaper as an unwed mother. A flirty, fashionable romp about class politics. 


JACK THE GIANT KILLER, 1962, MGM/UA, 94 min. Director Nathan Juran’s most underrated fantasy film, JACK THE GIANT KILLER follows the adventures of a young farmer (Kerwin Mathews) who slays a marauding giant and, in doing so, incurs the wrath of a sorcerer (Torin Thatcher) bent on controlling England. Juran skillfully blends SINBAD-style adventure with a surprisingly dark touch. Creepy, fantastic elements of the film include a truly terrifying nautical attack by hordes of glowing witches, and a sweet-faced princess (Judi Meredith) who is transformed through sorcery into her lusciously wicked mirror image!


JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, 1963, Sony Repertory, 104 min. Dir. Don Chaffey. Hercules, harpies, the bronze giant Talos and an army of living skeletons – what more could you ask for?! Greek warrior Jason (Todd Armstrong) travels to the farthest reaches of the earth in search of the legendary Golden Fleece in this glorious adventure. The film features some of Ray Harryhausen’s best visual effects and a score by Bernard Herrmann. Co-starring Nancy Kovack, Laurence Naismith and Nigel Green.


JOHN CAGE: THE REVENGE OF THE DEAD INDIANS ('93, 130m) at 7:30pm - Henning Lohner's beautiful "composed" tribute to American composer John Cage. Assembled using the same methodology of chance operation that Cage worked into his own aleatoric compositions, Revenge slices and dices the testimonials of a diverse cast of fans — including Frank Zappa, Noam Chomsky, Yoko Ono, Matt Groening, Merce Cunningham, Frank Gehry, Ellsworth Kelly, and Richard Serra — as well as interviews Lohner conducted with Cage late in his life. The gorgeous result is an unexpected and fascinating combination of intellectual buzzing fragments that couldn't be more fitting for a man who once said, "As far as consistency of thought goes, I prefer inconsistency." 6pm preshow with MAP merging live improvised music and avant-garde film.


KILLER OF SHEEP
(1977)
Now recognized as a landmark independent filmmaker, Charles Burnett shot his first feature in South Los Angeles in the early 1970s. KILLER OF SHEEP is a stunning example of American urban neo-realism at its best, depicting life in an impoverished neighborhood. The film centers around Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), whose brutal job in a Watts slaughterhouse can barely sustain his household. Amid the daily struggle against penury, powerlessness and lack of opportunity, the family experiences moments of relishing beauty and hope.
35mm, 83 min. 


The Last Man On Earth
Everyone has fantasized about what it might be like to be the last person alive on the planet. Anything you could possibly want would be right there at your disposal. Sounds fun, right? Not quite, at least according to writer Richard Matheson, whose nightmarish short novel I Am Legend, later to become The Omega Man, was first adapted as The Last Man On Earth, an intriguing, underrated Italian production starring Vincent Price. Last Man presents Price as Robert Morgan, a former scientist surviving amidst a plague of vampire-like zombies. Barricading himself in an abandoned house, Price struggles to keep the ghouls out, and when a human woman suddenly appears, Morgan believes he's found the key to rebuilding society -- but fate holds some nasty surprises in store. Shot in gritty B&W, Last Man's queasy, almost documentary feel is a clear inspiration on George Romero's later Night of the Living Dead, and Price is excellent as the debonair gatekeeper of humanity in a world gone gear.
Dirs. Ubaldo Ragona & Sidney Salkow, 1964, 35mm, 86 min.


LEFT BANK FILM NIGHT
A night of tribute to the Left Bank offshoot of French New Wave cinema. Featuring Chris Marker's 1962 short experimental Film "La Jetee" (which later inspired Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys") and pioneering director Agnes Varda's 1965 "Le Bonheur."


LEMORA: A CHILD’S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL, 1973, 85 min. Dir. Richard Blackburn. This adult fairy tale, long considered lost, is a masterpiece of mood and atmosphere. Inspired in part by Arthur Machen's "The White People," Lovecraft's "Shadow over Innsmouth" and J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," LEMORA is a Southern Gothic fever dream, half exploitation, half art film. Thirteen-year-old "singing angel" Lila Lee (Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith, one-time drummer for The Runaways) embarks on a dark erotic odyssey in which she is bathed, seduced and terrorized by the vampire Lemora (Lesley Gilb). A live-action CORALINE, 40 years ahead of its time. Amazingly, it is Richard Blackburn's only feature film as director.


LETTER TO ANNA: THE STORY OF JOURNALIST POLITKOVSKAYA'S DEATH
(2008, Switzerland) Directed by Eric Bergkraut
Much of the world learned of Russian journalist Ann Politkovskaya when she was shot dead at home, in a still-unsolved murder. But she was well-known in Russia as a relentless critic of the government's Chechnya policy, and had anticipated such a death. Interviews, reminiscences and scenes of precarious public demonstrations in Anna's memory, all underline her convictions and the precarious position of the press in modern Russia.
A panel discussion will follow the screening, examining the risks journalists confront worldwide. Please check back for updates on in-person guests for this program.
Cinematographer: Laurent Stoop. Editor: Vendula Roudnicka. Presented in English and Russian dialogue with English subtitles. DVcam, 83 min. 


LIFEFORCE
Patrick Stuart is featured in this genuinely creepy sci-fi horror film about a female vampire. She was dozing in Halley's comet, but once brought back to Earth she awakens to a whole new world of vampiric exploits so vast that the entire planet could be sucked dry.  Tobe Hooper---Great Britain---1985---101 mins. 


Light Echoes Dark: The Films of Julie Murray
“A masterful editor and visionary filmmaker.” Chris Gehman, Cinematheque Ontario
Irish-born, New York-based filmmaker Julie Murray combines found and original footage to conjure strange and paradoxical universes resonant with ambiguous meanings. Mystery and menace lurk equally amid the eloquence of her visual rhymes and word associations—whether in repeated images of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and the Heimlich maneuver (Conscious, 1993, 10 min.), shots of trees growing among crumbled brick ruins (Orchard, 2004, 9 min.), views from an aerial tram leaving Manhattan (If You Stand With Your Back to the Slowing of the Speed of Light in Water, 1997, 18 min.), or captioned excerpts from an instructional movie for the deaf (I Began to Wish, 2003, 5 min.). Comprising all 16mm films, this program features Murray’s latest work, ELEMENTs (2008, 7 min.)


Like A Phoenix From The Ashes:
"Pomegranates" Record Release Party
Join us as we inaugurate the release of "Pomegranates", a compilation of Persian folk, funk, and psychedelia on the Finders Keepers record label, in a night also celebrating Norooz (the Persian New Year!) This spring-equinox-special will boast a psychedelic visual feast of ultra-rare and never-before-screened vintage film and video clips from '60s/'70s Iran, collaged and curated by Cinefamily's Tom Fitzgerald, and soundtracked with a Middle Eastern mash-up mix done by Finders Keepers founder Andy Votel. A fun celebration of drinks, catered Persian dinner and pastries, and artwork along with special guest B-Music DJs will preview and follow the film presentation!


Liquid Sky
(w/ director Slava Tsukerman in person!)
One of the coolest, funniest and freakiest distillations of the '80s post-punk underground, Liquid Sky is pure madness, blending drugs, UFOs, death by orgasm and a cacophony of searing synths into a jagged neon time capsule that still thrills. In a dual role, Anne Carlisle plays Margaret (a damaged lesbian fashion model) and Jimmy (an arrogant gay junkie fashion model), who collide in NYC's robotic New Wave netherworld. As well, aliens arrive in a pint-sized flying saucer to extract the lifeforce from the human orgone; landing on Margaret's roof, they vaporize her many lovers in a dogpile of kaleidoscopic nuttiness. Russian emigré director Slava Tsukerman, himself out of place in the alien world of the '80s Lower East Side arthole, has big fun piling on the primitive video abstractions, fractured music and overwrought melodrama in order to deliver a skewering satire of a weird, weird world. Slava Tsukerman will be here at the Cinefamily in-person for a post-screening Q&A!
Dir. Slava Tsukerman, 1983, 35mm, 112 min.


LOVE LETTERS, 1945, Universal, 101 min. Dir. William Dieterle. Soldier Allen Quinton (Joseph Cotten) does a seemingly harmless favor for his inarticulate friend and writes romantic letters to the friend’s lover, Victoria (Jennifer Jones). Slowly, Quinton develops intense feelings for his unlikely pen pal. When Quinton’s friend winds up dead, and a luscious amnesiac known only as Singleton arrives on the scene, it seems that a more nefarious conspiracy is at play than meets the eye. Jones scored a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role.


THE MAGNIFICENT TATI, 2009, 60 min. Dir. Michael House. This documentary traces Jacques Tati's rise from the Parisian Music-Hall stage to his Oscar winning films of the 1950s, to Tati's ultimate gamble with his fourth film 'PlayTime'. Filled with rare Tati archival footage, television appearances and commentary from an eclectic mix of film historians, animators, rock stars and fans.


The Man From London
After several years' absence, Bela Tarr returned to the big screen in 2007 with his latest feature, The Man From London, a philosophical noir parable that, in the hands of another director like Sam Fuller, would play fast 'n rough, but in Tarr's signature slow-burn style, radiates with a seductive, chilly intensity. The dreary Maloin (played with morbid creakiness by Miroslav Krobot) works at a gloomy seaside port, and catches a sudden murder taking place on a dock. He recovers a mysterious suitcase full of cash abandoned in the bloody struggle -- which only worsens his despair-laden life, as the moral implications of keeping the loot weigh on him like concrete loafers. Tarr's languid, epic takes, upwards of the ten-minute mark (as in the mesmeric opening shot, exploring every inch of the dock before shockingly switching gears to reveal the murderous act), offer stark accompaniment to the story of a man trapped in the ferocious ambience of his own indecision.
Dirs. Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky, 2007, 35mm, 139 min. 


Marketa Lazarova
"Marketa Lazarova is without a doubt the best historical film ever made anywhere" - Film Quarterly
...the most convincing film about the Middle Ages made anywhere" - Sight & Sound, 75 Hidden Gems of Cinema
Repeatedly voted the best Czech film ever made, Marketa Lazarova is a harrowingly beautiful epic about whose blood runs thick with the passions and humors of the Dark Ages. In this tale of two warring clans, and a young maiden caught between them, director Frantisek Vlacil set out to make a film that transcended the usual period piece anachronisms, not just in details but also in spirit. He filmed for three years with his cast and crew in the Sumava forest, where he says they all "lived like animals...lacking food, and dressed in rags," to help create the tangible atmosphere he wanted. Rich animastic imagery, stark and savage snow-filled landscapes, and virtuoso filmmaking that rivals Tarkovsky for his mystic beauty and Kurosawa in its focused ferocity, together all make Marketa Lazarova a must-see.
Dir. Frantisek Vlacil, 1967, 35mm, 162 min.


MOCK UP ON MU
A radical hybrid of sci-fi, spy, Western, and even horror genres, Craig Baldwn’s Mock Up On Mu cobbles together a feature-length “collage-narrative” based on (mostly) true stories of California’s post-War sub-cultures of rocket pioneers, alternative religions, and Beat lifestyles. Pulp-serial snippets, industrial-film imagery, and B- (and Z-) fiction clips are intercut with newly shot live-action material, powering a playful, allegorical trajectory through the now-mythic occult matrix of Jack Parsons (Crowleyite founder of the Jet Propulsion Lab), L. Ron Hubbard (sci-fi author turned cult leader), and Marjorie Cameron (bohemian artist and “mother of the New Age movement”). Their intertwined tales spin out into a speculative farce on the militarization of space, and the corporate take-over of spiritual fulfillment and leisure-time. FILMMAKER CRAIG BALDWIN IN ATTENDANCE! 


The Most Dangerous Man in America
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, concluded that the war was based on decades of lies and leaked 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world. The Most Dangerous Man in America tells the riveting story of how one man's profound change of heart created a landmark struggle involving America's newspapers, its president and Supreme Court. The events of this political thriller led directly to Watergate, Nixon's resignation and the end of the Vietnam War. Co-directors Judith Erlich and Rick Goldsmith will be in attendance for a Q&A. Daniel Ellsberg will unfortunately not be unable to attend “Riveting! A straight-ahead, enthralling story of moral courage. This story changed the world. The movie offers one revelatory interview after another. Critics' Pick!” –David Edelstein, NEW YORK MAGAZINE “Earnest, smart, informative. The filmmakers do an astounding job relating how Ellsberg brought the Pentagon Papers...to light. It’s a thrilling, journalistic drama, easily the equal of Deep Throat.” –Chris Barsanti, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER DIRECTORS: Judith Erlich, Rick Goldsmith


MUSCLE BEACH PARTY, 1964, MGM Repertory, 94 min. Dir. William Asher. Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello hit Malibu Beach in the second of AIP's beach party flicks: While Don Rickles and his team of bodybuilders try to take over the gang's surf spot, Annette has to compete with an Italian countess who has eyes for Frankie. Luckily, Buddy Hackett is on hand to provide sage wisdom for all. An added bonus: musical numbers with Dick Dale and a 13-year old Stevie Wonder! Also starring Donna Loren and Morey Amsterdam.


The Mystic
Gypsies, scams, carnivals and magic -- all with the signature flair that director Tod Browning brought to classics like The Unholy Three, Freaks and Dracula. The Mystic follows Hungarian gypsy fortune teller Zara (played by the alluring Aileen Pringle) and her two cohorts as they take their show on the road to the U.S., and craft a scheme (backed by an unscrupulous American) to grift a gullible heiress by pretending to communicate with the dead. Even though the plot of The Mystic is to expose fraudulent spiritualism, the theme actually capitalized on the public’s persistent interest in occult themes throughout the 1920s, and Browning himself was inspired by the German Expressionist movement that sprouted just a few years earlier with distorted dreamlike carnival settings that surface in this film. As well as the visuals being superior, The Mystic also boasts the sumptuous costumes of famed French designer "Erté", whose elegant illustrations influenced the Art Deco movement. Come be hypnotized by the only Los Angeles 35mm screening of this film in ages!
Dir. Tod Browning, 1925, 35mm, 70 min.


Night Flight presents:
A Tribute To New Wave Theatre
The opening of this year's Post-Punk Junk fest brings the return of Night Flight to the Cinefamily! In the '80s, overnight TV was completely staid, except for one anarchic alternative: Night Flight. Premiering on the USA Network in '81, this legendary weekend variety show featured a glorious amalgamation of music videos, short films, cartoons, interviews, concerts, and cult movies -- and the cutting-edge, truly original New Wave Theatre. Hosted by the verbose, fun-loving Peter Ivers, NWT was crammed full of chaotic live performances by So Cal punks and new wavers (Fear, Dead Kennedys, Surburban Lawns), in addition to Dadaist comedy sketches, rapid-fire montages of Hiroshima and outer space, and gonzo monologues preaching optimism for the Nuclear Age (written by crazed visionary producer David Jove.) Running for three years until Ivers' untimely death, NWT gave the best of what the underground L.A. music scene had to offer, and tonight we present a much-deserved tribute to this unsung slab of video history, as well as a fiery blast of vintage punk-themed Night Flight programming.


Night Of The Comet
This '80s horror/comedy takes the Last Man On Earth premise and gives it a colorful and satirical shot in the arm. Valley girls Regina and her sister Samantha (The Apple's Catherine Mary Stewart and Chopping Mall's Kelli Maroney) are the only ones not interested in the great rogue comet scheduled to pass by Earth, and the morning after, find everyone else turned into piles of red dust -- which of course makes them ecstatic to be rid of annoying adults, to plunder high-end department stores and to play good music on the radio for a change. However, they're soon caught up in a deadly power play between the un-dusted zombie masses and a cabal of isolated scientists more interested in saving themselves than the whole of mankind. Lucky for us, our heroines are unafraid to get their coiffs mussed, 'cause they're pumped and accessorized for battle!
Dir. Thom Eberhardt, 1984, 35mm, 95 min.


A Night With TVTV
Before The Daily Show sent their "reporters" out into the world for satirical newscoverage, before Christopher Guest and This is Spinal Tap utilized cinema verité's natural deadpan to devastating comic effect, and before American Movie and Heavy Metal Parking Lot popularized the comic documentary form -- there was TVTV. Radical, hilarious and influential, "Top Value Television" was an ad hoc collective of documentarians whose pioneering use of portable, low-tech video gear allowed them unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to everything from presidential conventions to the Super Bowl. Their philosophy,articulated in co-founding member Michael Shamberg's 1971 manifesto "Guerrilla Television", was to "demonstrate the potential of decentralized video technology" as a means to break free from the ideological strangehold broadcast technology had on American culture -- forecasting the media free-for-all that's rapidly becoming our day-to-day lives. The Cinefamily celebrates the TVTV spirit, and the top notch documentary filmmaking they produced, with a panel discussion/reunion of TVTV members, a video "primer" of past works, and a screening of Lord Of The Universe, an expose on sixteen-year-old Guru Maharaj Ji and the national gathering of his followers at the Houston Astrodome. 


NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS
(2009) Directed by Bahman Ghobadi
Bahman Ghobadi (Turtles Can Fly) offers a glimpse of can-do determination. Faced with prohibitions against rock music, bandmates Negar and Ashkan plot to leave Iran for England to make music their way. Their deliberate progress toward this elusive goal takes them through the underground rock scene in a brisk, often comical look, at a side of Iranian life seldom seen on film.
Producer: Bahman Ghobadi. Screenplay: Bahman Ghobadi, Hossein M. Abkenar, Roxana Saberi. Cinematographer: Turaj Asiani. Editor: Hayedeh Safiyari. Cast: Negar Shaghaghi, Askan Koshanejad, Hamed Behdad. 35mm, 101 min. 


North Face
Based on a true story, North Face is a gripping adventure drama about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. In July of 1936 - less than a year after the most recent and fatal attempt, two top German mountaineers take up the challenge to become the first to scale the infamous rock face, the so-called Murder Wall. Official Selection - 2008 Berlin International Film Festival "Director Philipp Stölzl and his crew don't just capture the period clothes and equipment, they place the viewer right on the Eiger itself, struggling for handholds on precipitous cliffs as winds howl and the depths below yawn with terrifying clarity. Mountain climbing has rarely looked this exciting or dangerous onscreen." -Daniel Eagan, FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL "it is impossible not to put yourself in the boots of the mountaineers clinging to a sheer, icy rock face during a blizzard that threatens to send them into oblivion." -Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES "more than delivers on the excitement and terror of this existential flirtation with one's own mortality." -Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER DIRECTOR: Philipp Stolzl 


The Omega Man
The second stab at adapting Richard Matheson's classic post-apocalyptic vampire tale "I Am Legend", The Omega Man eschews Matheson's gothic horror for '70s grooviness. Charlton Heston stars in a role that's an analog of his characters from Soylent Green and Planet Of The Apes, but it's always a thrill to watch him to chew acres of barren scenery, and have moments of genuine psychotic glee, as in the scene where he laughs maniacally during a deserted screening of Woodstock (WTF?). The villains here are more an albino cult than vampires (led by Anthony Zerbe, who steals the show,) but in all it's a pretty rollicking good time and a must see for fans of pre-Star Wars '70s sci-fi. If nothing else, you'll get a kick out of watching Heston living in a bizarrely decked-out fortified penthouse pad, and barreling through the empty streets of Los Angeles in a giant red convertible while grooving to mellow tunes on 8-track.
Dir. Boris Segal, 1971, 35mm, 98 min. 


One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich
2000/color/55 min./beta | Scr/dir: Chris Marker
Through film clips, journal entries, and personal musings, renowned French filmmaker Chris Marker pays homage to his friend and colleague Andrei Tarkovsky. Through close readings of Tarkovsky's films—including rare scenes from his student film (an adaptation of Hemingway's The Killers) and a practically unknown production of Boris Godunov—Marker draws parallels between Tarkovsky's tumultuous life and his films. Personal anecdotes from Tarkovsky's writings—from his prophetic meeting with Boris Pasternak (author of Dr. Zhivago) to an encounter with the KGB on the streets of Paris (he thought they were coming to kill him)—pepper the film. With behind-the-scenes footage of Tarkovsky obsessively commanding his entire crew for his final film, The Sacrifice, and candid moments of the director with his friends and family, bedridden but still editing the film, One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich is a personal and loving portrait of the monumental filmmaker. "The best single piece of Tarkovsky criticism I know of, clarifying the overall coherence of [Tarkovsky's] oeuvre while leaving all the mysteries of his films intact."—Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader.


One Too Many Mornings
In a unique hybrid of fratboy-esque raunch and Cassavetes-style naturalism, One Too Many Mornings, fresh from its premiere at the 2010 Sundance fest, is a coming-of-age comedy about two dudes who are way too old to be coming of age. Fischer, a twentysomething layabout who lives for free in a Pacific Palisades church, is surprised to find estranged childhood friend Peter, who's run away from a longtime girlfriend, on his doorstep. As the boys drink, party and waste their days away, Fischer turns a blind eye to Peter's growing depression -- until Peter's girlfriend becomes the next to show up unexpectedly. Director Michael Mohan acutely explores the nuances of friendship and responsibility and keeps it charming, while the crisp B&W cinematography provides a smart counterpoint. The acting is great, the characters are real, and the story’s challenge asks you personally -- this is your life; what are you gonna do about it? Join us for a cast & crew Q&A after the screening!
Dir. Michael Mohan, 2010, digital presentation, 90 min.


The Outlaw Josey Wales
1976/136 min./color/Panavision | Scr: Philip Kaufman, Sonia Chernus; dir: Clint Eastwood; w/ Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke
In this epic road movie set in post-Civil War America, Eastwood plays a taciturn Confederate rebel who journeys through the monumental landscapes and changing seasons of the West in search of the Union scum that massacred his family. Released during the bicentennial, Josey Wales is a mélange of classic western motifs and "New Hollywood" anti-authoritarian politics; according to Eastwood, the film is "a saga… rather than just having a mysterious hero appear on the plains and get involved with other people's problems; you can see how Josey Wales gets to where he is."


THE OUT OF TOWNERS, 1970, Paramount, 98 min. Dir. Arthur Hiller. Likable Midwesterners Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis get more than they bargain for when they take a trip to New York and experience an unending string of catastrophes over the course of three days. Neil Simon scripted this classic comedy, which makes lost luggage and canceled hotel reservations, diverted flights and missed trains, and even muggings and hostile cops surprisingly amusing. 


Pale Rider
1985/color/115 min./Panavision | Scr: Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack; dir: Clint Eastwood; w/ Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress
In this haunting tale set in Gold Rush-era California, a preacher man with no name mysteriously appears astride a white horse to defend a small community of prospectors against a greedy mining company. "Much like his allegorical protagonist in Pale Rider, director/star Eastwood rode to the rescue when the Hollywood Western genre was at its lowest ebb… After Heaven's Gate, the major studios wanted nothing to do with sagebrush sagas, but Eastwood, having known nothing but success with oaters, went into the production of Pale Rider regarding the project as a safe gamble. 'It's not possible,' Eastwood remarked in an 1984 interview, 'that Josey Wales could be the last Western to be a commercial success. You can still talk about sweat and hard work, about the spirit, about love for the land and ecology in the Western, in the classic mythological form.'"—Turner Classic Movies. 


PARADE, 1974, Janus Films, 84 min. Rarely screened, PARADE is likely the least seen of Jacques Tati's works. Freed from the persona and ancillary mannerisms that he had inhabited onscreen for 20 years, Tati returns to the vibrant pantomiming and giddy clowning of his youth as a music-hall star. In French with English subtitles.


The Patsy
As newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst’s real-life mistress, Marion Davies garnered a lifelong reputation for controversy and an unjustified caricature in the form of Citizen Kane’s ditzy charmer, Susan Alexander. The limelight was often unflattering to Davies, and her ill-advised turns (at Hearst’s insistence) in overwrought dramas overshadowed her wonderful run as a skilled comedienne in some of the Roaring Twenties’ most playful films. The Patsy casts Davies in the sort of role she was born to play -- a flighty, loveable flapper who's perceived as a pain by stuffy family members who aspire to be up-and-comers on the social circuit. Starting off meek, Marion "ditches washing dishes for a personality transfusion and drives her family nuts by mangling dictums and hitting on soused playboys." (cinepassion.org) In addition to the fun of watching the vivacious Davies vamping it up, don't miss the hilarious scene where she does spot-on impressions of three other silent starlets: Mae Murray, Pola Negri and Lillian Gish!
Dir. King Vidor, 1928, 35mm, 78 min. 


PENITENTIARY III
(from IMDB)
A man is framed for murder and sent to prison. He is beaten and tortured, then forced to fight the prison's worst killer, a martial-arts fighting midget called Thud.  Dir. Jamaa Fanaka, 1987, 91 mins.


PLAZA SUITE, 1971, Paramount, 114 min. Director Arthur Hiller's second Neil Simon adaptation is a hilarious collection of three stories, each set in New York's Plaza Hotel and each starring Walter Matthau - in three different roles! The episodes follow Matthau as a man having an affair with his secretary, as a sleazy Hollywood producer, and as the father of a nervous bride-to-be; all three characters provide insights into relationships that are both funny and true. Discussion in between films with director Arthur Hiller.


Poor Pretty Eddie
"There is a buffet of loathsomeness here." - The Video Vacuum
A hot and swampy reworking of Jean Genet's "Theatre Of The Absurd" touchstone "The Balcony" (weirdly making this Shelly Winters' second appearance in an "adaptation" of the play,) Poor Pretty Eddie is a cracked, campy, offensive and skull-peeling genre film that's hard to pin down into just one genre; it's a brilliant composite of blaxploitation, hicksploitation and Gothic horror laden with astounding pseudo-avant-garde visuals. Black singer Leslie Uggams gets trapped in a small Southern town full of dim-bulb racists (including a crispy-fried Dub Taylor, Slim Pickins and a homicidal Elvis impersonator) who rape and terrorize her repeatedly, until she extracts a queasy, greasy revenge. Right up there on the "race-baiting grindhouse gobsmackers best-of" list with Fight For Your Life, Poor Pretty Eddie is propelled even further by the lysergic, elliptical film editing of Frank Mazzola, master cutter responsible for the montage on Donald Cammell films like Performance and Demon Seed!
Dirs. Richard Robinson, 1975, 35mm, 92 min.


PORTRAIT OF JENNIE, 1948, Disney, 86 min. Dir. William Dieterle. This wistful love story focuses on struggling artist Joseph Cotten as he gradually falls in love with Jennie (Jennifer Jones), a strange young girl he meets in Central Park. As Cotten periodically runs into her over a series of months, she seems to grow up before his eyes, and he slowly comes to understand that his new muse is the restless spirit of a long-dead woman. 


RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
Certainly this isn't a movie for everybody, but if you can handle a little gore, this horror-comedy provides a lot of laughs. Both a spoof and affectionate tribute to Night of the Living Dead, this film puts the zombies on the loose again after employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air that reanimates corpses at the local cemetery. Lots of outrageous humor, a frenetic pace and gross-out effects aplenty. With James Karen, Clu Gulager, and the uninhibited Linnea Quigley. The directing debut of screenwriter Dan O'Bannon (Dark Star).  Dan O'Bannon---USA---1985---90 mins. 


REVANCHE
In this Oscar-nominated thriller from Austrian filmmaker Gotz Spielmann, a bouncer from Vienna takes his prostitute girlfriend along for a low-key heist in an outlying town. Fate deals a cruel hand when a local police officer fires at their getaway car, killing the young woman. On the lam, the thief deals with his grief by setting his sights on the cop's wife. Though not a very bloody revenge story, the sexual content is potent. "Revanche works on the level of a higher-minded Death Wish" (Time Out New York). Starring Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko, Andreas Lust, and Ursula Strauss. In German with English subtitles.  Gotz Spielmann---Austria---2008---122 mins. 


Rituals in Transfigured Time
Join us for an evening of short films by Gordon Matta-Clark, Robert Smithson, Bruce Nauman, Kiki Smith, and more. The notion of time, and altering delineations of space—positive and negative, interior and exterior, human and natural—are explored through a range of compositions and choreographies. These artists share an interest in traces, and their moving images can be considered drawings in time, as well as timed drawings.


The Road Warrior
The phrase "high octane" has become a cliche in reference to action films, but George Miller's classic deserves it, as it remains for most film fans the pulse-pounding post-apocalypse film, often imitated but never outdone. The story here is rooted more in the Western tradition than the film's trappings would suggest: in a desolate fuel-depleted future, loner Max (Mel Gibson, in the role that made him a star) aids a small band of survivors trying to protect their precious oil supply from an invading barbaric horde. But what matters here is the punk-rock-meets-sports-gear aesthetic and the glorious, glorious vehicular mayhem. Miller's swooping frenetic camera work, coupled with stupefying, dangerous and real stunts make this easily one of the greatest car chase movies, as well as one of the most beloved actioners. If you've somehow escaped seeing it on the big screen before, you owe it to yourself to rectify that. One for the ages.
Dir. George Miller, 1981, 35mm, 91 min. 


Ross Lipman: Urban Ruins, Found Moments
“Lipman’s films are wonderful…. strong and delicate at the same time… unique. The rhythm and colors are so subtle, deep and soft.” Nico le Brenez, Cinémathèque Française
Known as one of the world’s leading restorationists of experimental and independent cinema, Ross Lipman is also an accomplished filmmaker, writer and performer whose oeuvre has taken on urban decay as a marker of modern consciousness. He visits REDCAT with a program of his own lyrical and speculative works, including the films 10-17-88 (1989, 11 min.) and Rhythm 06 (1994/2008, 9 min.), selections from the video cycle The Perfect Heart of Flux, and the performance essay The Cropping of the Spectacle. “Everything that’s built crumbles in time: buildings, cultures, fortunes, and lives,” says Lipman. “The detritus of civilization tells us no less about our current epoch than an archeological dig speaks to history. The urban ruin is particularly compelling because it speaks of the recent past, and reminds us that our own lives and creations will also soon pass into dust. These film, video, and performance works explore decay in a myriad of forms—architectural, cultural, and personal.”
In person: Ross Lipman


The Round-Up
A gripping parable of power and rebellion drawn from the pages of Hungary’s tumultuous history, The Round-Up is perhaps the most timeless and universal of director Miklos Jancso's films of the '60s and '70s. Set in a prison camp on the vast, desolate Hungarian steppe, the film chronicles the oppressive techniques of the Austrian military as they torture, humiliate and turn their captives, a downtrodden mob of peasants and revolutionaries, against one another. The film's moral ambiguity and dispassionate depiction of suffering invokes not only the Communist regime of the film's era, but the Abu Ghraib prison scandal as well. Though the film hints at the hardcore formalism of Jancso's later works, The Round-Up strikes a delicate balance between experimentation and narrative intrigue; Jancso's dazzling widescreen cinematography and precise arrangement of bodies in space never overwhelm the urgent, focused storytelling that propels this classic of political cinema.
Dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1965, 35mm, 95 min. 


ROYCE HALL ORGAN & SILENT FILM - CHARLIE CHAPLIN
What's old is new again. In the grand tradition of silent cinema's golden age, renowned organist Dennis James performs a live accompaniment to the Chaplin classics The Kid and Easy Street. Royce Hall's Skinner Organ (comprised of 6600 pipes) is a UCLA campus and city-wide treasure. Join us for this annual family tradition.


ROYCE HALL ORGAN & SILENT FILM - BERNARD HERMANN AND ALFRED HITCHCOCK
This UCLA Live-only event honors two cinematic geniuses: director Alfred Hitchcock and film composer Bernard Herrmann. Their fruitful collaboration from 1955 to 1964 included “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Vertigo” and “Psycho.” (Hermann even served as sound consultant on the music-less film “The Birds,” creating the creature’s noises.) Acclaimed organist Stephan Tharp – a composer and champion of new organ music – opens the program with adaptations of those films’ scores. Then UCLA’s own organist Christoph Bull – creator of the eclectic Organica concert series – provides a live improvised score to the early Hitchcock silent film, “The Lodger.”


The Running Man
TV Of Tomorrow
(feat. The Running Man)
Don't touch that dial! Stay tuned, we'll be right back -- with the decline and fall of western civilization! Of all the goofball prognastications that litter the landscapes of stupid future flicks, none are more consistently amusing and instantly dated than the inevitable peek at what television is going to look like in the future. Aside from the quaint idea that people will still be watching TV rather than cruising the grand central computerverse, one can enjoy how every wacky graphic and ironic khyron is irreversibly stamped with the year these film were made. So come take a couch trip back to the future, as we show you 1976's vision of 1985 (X-rated commercials as the new "normal"), 1997's vision of 2010 (nakedly crypto-fascist news broadcasts), and finally, we'll all watch 1987's 2019, brought to you in the form of one of our favorite "Most Dangerous Game"-show flicks, The Running Man, starring the Governator and hosted by "Family Feud"'s Richard Dawson.
The Running Man   Dir. Paul Michael Glaser, 1987, 35mm, 101 min.


RUNNING SCARED
Director Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) nods to Brian De Palma, Walter Hill, and Sam Peckinpah in the closing credits of this ultra-violent mob thriller, which gives some indication of its hyperstylized, blood-drenched visuals. Paul Walker stars as Joey Gazelle, a low-level Mafia grunt who's given the opportunity rise through the ranks if he can dispose of a pistol that goes missing after a hit on two cops. When the gun switches hands and is used against an affiliate of the Russian mob, Gazelle finds himself caught in an impossible jam. "Makes Kill Bill look like Sesame Street"  Wayne Kramer---USA---2006---122 mins. 


The Sacrifice
1986/color/145 min. | Scr/dir: Andrei Tarkovsky; w/ Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall
As a Swedish family celebrates the birthday of their patriarch—Bergman fixture Erland Josephson—on their windswept Baltic island, the celebratory moods dissipates as news of World War III's outbreak blares from a television screen. With his arresting palette of luminous grays washing over the austere landscape—shot by another Bergman regular, cinematographer Sven Nykvist—Tarkovsky conveys a family's psychological devastation and Josephson's Faustian pact in order to save his loved ones. Tarkovsky's final film, made as he was dying of cancer, is a profoundly moving account of redemption whose final movement offers a virtuoso long take of intricately choreographed splendor. "To see The Sacrifice after a junk-food diet of Hollywood movies is like ducking out of a carnival to visit a medieval crypt. You are pulled out of time and into a sacred stillness. The images, handsomely sculpted, address themes of life and death and life after death… Compared with The Sacrifice's art, the formal sophistication of even the best Hollywood movies seems superficially applied, like press-on nails and a styling gel…It is not surprising that at the twilight of his life, this introspective artist should imagine the last flash of the last night of everybody's life—the end of the world—on film."—Richard Corliss, Time. 


Sansho The Bailiff
Director Kenji Mizoguchi’s masterful use of depth-of-field and camera movement reveals itself subtly and powerfully in this classic Japanese melodrama. The immersive power of its long takes conjures the poetic, emotional tone of a folk tale, yet Sansho the Bailiff remains startling in its realistic depiction of poverty, suffering and the cruelty of power. The family of an exiled provincial lord, travelling through a treacherous countryside, are tricked by bandits and sold into slavery; the two children, separated from their mother, find themselves in the servitude of the heartless Sansho the Bailiff. Through years of brutal treatment and toil, the children grow up, waiting for their chance to escape and reunite with their long-lost mother, now a courtesan on a distant island. Mizoguchi’s technique rarely draws attention to itself; by limiting his use of the long-take to the scenes of the greatest dramatic impact, the director frames a profound humanist message with unparalleled immediacy and clarity.
Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954, 35mm, 124 min. 


Scope-A-Toons
This month our resident animation historian Jerry Beck will screen a collection of classic cartoons from the 1950s which were made in various anamorphic widescreen formats. The majority of these cartoons have not been projected in their original screen ratios since their first release –- and will include Disney’s Oscar-winning Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom and Terrytoons’ classic Juggler of Our Lady (narrated by Boris Karloff, designed by R.O. Blechman.) Rarely seen on the big screen, Jerry will expand your animated horizons in CinemaScope, MetroScope, TotalVision and SuperPanaoramaUltraScope! A once in a lifetime presentation -- Mr. Magoo, Tom & Jerry, Donald Duck, will never look the same!


Seven Chances
Join us for an early evening Valentine's Day treat -- the return of Buster Keaton's matrimony mix-up silent masterpiece Seven Chances! The film features the most magnificently ludicrous premise in all of Keaton-dom: Buster is a broke financial broker who finds out he stands to gain an inheritance of millions -- if he manages to marry before the day is out! After some wildly unsuccessful impromptu court-us interruptus, he rushes a personals ad in the paper -- and what follows is one of the most stunning signature Keaton chase sequences, with hundreds of would-be brides barreling down the streets of Los Angeles, zeroing in on Buster's bod.


Small Change
One of Francois Truffaut's most endearing labors of love, Small Change is one of those rare films that strikes dead the cynicism in any hardened heart. Filmed entirely in Thiers, a small town in the French countryside, the film presents an interconnected series of vignettes featuring one of the most vibrant child casts ever gathered, as the kids (ages 0 to 14) go to school, horse around, go to the movies, fall out of windows, care for (and rebel against) their parents and explore each other; as Truffaut himself said, "Our idea really is 'From the first bottle to the first kiss.'" The film's schoolbound world is the antithesis of the dour oppressiveness Truffaut paints in The 400 Blows, and the joyousness of the proceedings clearly wore off on the director, for Small Change is as innocent, buzzing and wide-eyed as childhood itself. We're thrilled to present Small Change in a gorgeous, newly-struck 35mm print! 


THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA
(2005, France/United States) Directed by Tommy Lee Jones
In his directorial debut, Tommy Lee Jones casts the borderland between America and Mexico as the rugged backdrop for the story of Texas rancher (Jones) who defies the law and the land to keep a promise to a friend. Scripted by Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams), this tale of violence and redemption gets a powerful lift from cinematographer Chris Menges who's insightful lighting underscores the blurred boundaries between good and evil in human nature.
Europa Corp.. Producer: Michael Fitzgerald, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, Luc Besson, Tommy Lee Jones. Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga. Cinematographer: Chris Menges. Editor: Roberto Silvi. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio César Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, January Jones. 35mm, 120 min.
IN PERSON: Chris Menges, BSC, ASC.


Tightrope
1984/color/117 min. | Scr/dir: Richard Tuggle; w/ Clint Eastwood, Geneviève Bujold
In this nocturnal thriller, a cop with a taste for S&M pursues a psychopath who is killing hookers into the sexual underworld of New Orleans. Eastwood is compelling as a flawed man and single father who turns to a female self-defense instructor for help. "A throwback to the great cop movies of the 1940s—when the hero wrestled with his conscience as much as with the killer… Tightrope may appeal to the Dirty Harry fans, with its sex and violence. But it's a lot more ambitious than the Harry movies…Think how unusual it is for a major male star to appear in a commercial cop picture in which the plot hinges on his ability to accept and respect a woman. Eastwood continues to change and experiment, and that makes him the most interesting of the box-office megastars."—Roger Ebert.


Toonstruck - Cartoons In Love
In the cartoon world, marriage is not exclusively for one man and one woman. It can be between two mice, two wabbits, even a skunk and a pussy-cat! Animation historian Jerry Beck (Cartoon Brew.com) opens the film vault and presents a collection of love-obsessed cartoon classics starring all your favorites -- from the sex-starved Pepe LePew, to Tex Avery’s luscious Red Riding Hood. As usual, the program features rare 35mm and 16mm Technicolor film prints -- cartoons suitable for cartoon lovers of all ages! Bring a date, and don’t be late!


TRAFFIC, 1971, Janus Films, 96 min. Jacques Tati reinstates M. Hulot, who is given the assignment of escorting a ridiculously gadget-addled, super-deluxe camper from its French factory to the International Automobile Show in Amsterdam. Of course, a comic set of obstacles, detours and mishaps sets the caravan reeling. In French with English subtitles. 


TWO-MINUTE WARNING, 1976, Universal, 115 min. Dir. Larry Peerce. A sniper want to unleash his weapon on a packed football stadium, and police chief Charlton Heston joins forces with SWAT team sergeant John Cassavetes to capture the psycho before he opens fire on the fans, who include Gena Rowlands, Jack Klugman, David Janssen, Walter Pidgeon and Beau Bridges.


UP IN MABEL'S ROOM
Up next is Up In Mabel's Room, featuring another undergarment-related turn of events. Mabel must fight for her husband back after divorcing him for purchasing lingerie for some hot tart (who turned out to be Mabel herself! Yowzah!). So, straighten your stockings, adjust your bra straps, and don't get your panties in a bunch because definitive flapper girl Marie Prevost is a real pistol.  Dir. E. Mason Hopper, 1926, 35mm, 70 min.


Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders
"Virtually every shot is a knockout." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
As joyful as it is impossible to pin down, VAHWOW is a haunting psychoactive period piece which plunges the beautiful heroine Valerie into a phantasmagorical world of thirsty vampires, the dark arts and dreamy free love -- all set to one of the great film scores of the era, a cocktail of psych-folk and avant-garde classical by the great Luboš Fišer. The film opens with 13-year-old Valerie's first menstruation and subsequent sexual awakening, the unsteady discovery of which lets loose a torrent of quixotic, hallucinatory experiences both terrifying and beautiful; amongst a haze of shifting tones and a flurry of role reversals and Gothic nightmares in broad daylight, Valerie floats along, buoyed by the fears and fantasies that come with nascent sexuality and teenage fantasy. This bewitching brew is a must to behold on 35mm -- do not miss it.
Dir. Jaromil Jireš, 1970, 35mm, 77 min.


Vincere
2009/color/128 min. | Scr/dir: Marco Bellocchio; w/ Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Filippo Timi. | Screening courtesy of IFC Films.
One of Italy's most highly regarded directors, Bellocchio was dubbed a master of "baroque" filmmaking in the mid-sixties with his first feature Fists in the Pocket, a corrosive portrait of a dysfunctional upper class family whose crazed, epileptic teenage son plots the death of his mother and brother. Though he directed thirty films during the next four decades, only a handful made it onto American screens, among them: China is Near, a stinging political satire that predicts the student revolutions of '68; The Devil in the Flesh, a sexually explicit adaptation of the Stendahl novel updated to 1980s Italy; and Good Morning, Night, a stark depiction of the 1978 kidnapping of Prime Minister Aldo Moro as seen through the eyes of a young female terrorist. His newest film Vincere ("To Win") was hailed as a masterpiece and a return to form following its premiere at the 2009 Cannes Festival. By bringing to light the horrifying—and little-known—story of Ida Dalser, the young Mussolini's first "wife," who is thrown into an asylum by Black Shirts when she demands official recognition for herself and their son, Bellocchio takes the audience on a descent into the black hole of fascism. With its striking style that combines newsreels, silent films, and expressionistic graphics, and highlighted by a harrowing performance by Giovanna Mezzogiorno, the film brilliantly evokes the madness that gripped Italy under "Il Duce."


THE VIRGIN SPRING
Max von Sydow stars in this exploration of a father's revenge for the rape and murder of his daughter. Highly contrasting black and white images evoke an imaginative, medieval world created by cinematographer Sven Nykvist. A stunning work. "Achieves a tremendous sense of primeval passion and physical power" (The New York Times). In Swedish with English subtitles. Ingmar Bergman---Sweden---1960---89 mins. 


WILD RIVER, 1960, 20th Century Fox, 110 min. Dir. Elia Kazan. Always-excellent Montgomery Clift plays Chuck Glover, a young man sent to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam. Deep-seated racial tension emerges when it is suggested that black laborers work on the construction of the dam, and complications only build when Chuck becomes romantically entangled with a local widow. "Kazan’s finest and deepest film!" – Dave Kehr Discussion in between films with actress Patricia Neal, moderated by film historian Foster Hirsch.


A Woman Of Affairs
A Woman of Affairs marks the third pairing of on- and off-screen lovers Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, and is based on the 1924 bestseller "The Green Hat" -- a novel so scandalous that when it arrived on the desks of the MGM story department, it was labeled "sordid and filthy and entirely impossible for screen consideration!" Garbo plays an elegant woman who's forbidden by her family to marry Gilbert, a suave aristocrat, and so instead marries a loser who turns out to be a crook. After his death, she reunites with a now-married Gilbert, setting off an explosive and tragic spiral of events. A Woman Of Affairs is the first of almost twenty films in which Garbo's wardrobe was designed by Adrian (the costumier behind classics like The Wizard Of Oz and Camille), who very quickly rose through the ranks at MGM, and whose iconic work for Garbo is so integral to her persona that without it, it's possible she might've been just another Swedish starlet.
Dir. Clarence Brown, 1928, 35mm, 91 min.


Women Love Diamonds
From its title, Women Love Diamonds sounds like a genteel, sweet romance, but is really a melodrama that's surprisingly gritty for its time, and contains enough bursts of emotion to rival works by Sirk or Borzage. Pauline Starke plays a young woman of dubious parentage supported by Lionel Barrymore, whom she claims is her uncle. Finding love in the arms of both rich suitor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and his valet, and then a brutal rejection when her family truth is revealed, Starke must climb her way back from the murky emotional depths. When original casting choice Greta Garbo went on salary strike from MGM, the film's costume designer must have breathed a sigh of relief. Clemente André-Ani, a collaborator of Erté and costumier for contract players like Norma Shearer and Marion Davies, never saw eye-to-eye with Garbo's outspoken ideas about overdone American fashion, and subsequently loaded Women Love Diamonds with enough lavish flowing gowns, hats and jewelry to clothe an army of radiant damsels.
Dir. Edmund Goulding, 1927, 35mm, 70 min.

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